One bottle on my shelf has a slightly different story than the others: Ichiro's Malt Chichibu Red Wine Cask 2023. Same distillery as Ichiro's Malt & Grain White Label: Venture Whisky / Chichibu Distillery in Saitama.
I didn't buy it at retail. I got it through a whisky lottery — a Japanese specialty-shop tradition where hard-to-get bottles are sold by raffle for a few thousand yen per ticket. Chichibu single malts retail from around ¥30,000 and often resell for a multiple of that, so when the email said I'd drawn this one, I genuinely shook a little.
Chichibu single malt finished in red wine casks
Red Wine Cask 2023 sits within Chichibu's finish-cask line. Spirit aged in bourbon and sherry casks is later transferred to French-oak red-wine casks for several months to years. 50% ABV, distributed worldwide in small allocations.
The nose opens with cassis, red berries, and a thread of tannin from the wine cask. Behind that, the Chichibu signature: orange peel, woody spice, dark chocolate. The palate is rich — berry jam, then spice. The finish is long, with the wine cask's grip and sweetness lingering. The 50% ABV gives real body; a few drops of water open the fruit aromas further.
The "won it in a lottery" memory
Getting a bottle by luck rather than by paying retail biases your tasting. Trying to keep that bias in check, this still reads as a technically high-quality bottle: Chichibu's delicate spirit and a French-oak red-wine finish that meets it at the right point.
The whisky lottery is somewhere between gambling and a small festival. Opening a bottle you won has a different weight than ordinary tasting, and that's worth recording.
Chichibu Red Wine Cask, in context
Chichibu's finish-cask programme
Chichibu controls maturation casks at fine grain, including American oak, Spanish sherry, and limited finishes in French-oak red wine casks, Japanese mizunara, IPA casks and more. Red Wine Cask first appeared in 2009 and has since become a recurring annual release.
The 2023 release
Globally limited; finished in French-oak red-wine casks; 50% ABV; non-chill-filtered, no caramel colour.
Japanese "whisky lottery" culture
Japanese specialty shops run lottery sales for hard-to-source bottles. For a few thousand yen per ticket, one of several bottles ships at random — often well below market resale prices. Treating it as entertainment is the assumed etiquette.
Domestic listings appear on Amazon.co.jp, but stock is highly volatile (limited release).